Tears
by UsuakariTOT
Summary: Shackled inside his hikari's mind, Marik's own thoughts begin to wander. He looks back on his life, and forward as well, remembering the Sun and something just as valuable.


**A/N- **This is my second oneshot. Its also about Yami Marik. Its every bit as depressing as the other one but in a different way. I wrote it quickly because I don't have time to update my chapter fic, but I hope you like it all the same. 

**Tears**

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_'In the Shadow Realm everything is Black. Not black like ink or someone's skin, but Black, pure Black that is nothing and everything all at once. It is less a color than it is the palpable evidence of the Abyss. But if the Abyss represents nothing, does Black still exist? One would say so, for the Shadow Realm is unquestionably here, and everything about it is Black. Or maybe it too is nonexistant. Maybe Black, the Shadow Realm, and the Abyss are all just phantoms of my imagination. But that can't be. I was born of the Shadows so they must be real, but what if I'm wrong? Does this mean I don't exist?'_

It was these kind of thoughts that gave Marik a headache. They flitted through his mind unbidden, bouncing off of everything but leaving the actual answers dangling just out of his reach. He found it unbearably fustrating. Not being sure of your own reality was unnerving even for a yami. Marik wondered if anyone else worried like he did. _'Not likely. They have the Light.'_

That was another thing. Lately the spirit had been pouring over his memories of Battle City, doing it more to pass the time than anything else, and he was beginning to question whether or not he was right in wanting to plunge the world into Darkness. Even if the Pharaoh and his hikari hadn't stopped him, was it possible at all? If everything was Black in the Shadow Realm, and Black made up the Abyss, that meant that the Abyss made up the Shadow Realm, but the Abyss was nothing, and if the Abyss was nothing then the Shadow Realm was nothing, but if the Shadow Realm was nothing then it didn't exist, and how could the Light be swallowed up by something that didn't exist?

Or maybe it was the Light that wasn't real. Maybe the Abyss was everything.

_'STOP THINKING!' _With a snarl of fustration Marik tore at his hair, willing all questions to simply disappear. He was so tired of this, tired of what was the beginning of an eternity of Black and endless minutes spent pondering questions that would never be answered. Marik's grip on his hair went lax, and he stared dumbly at his hands. They were cracked and bleeding, his wrists torn from struggling against the only other tangible thing in the Darkness besides himself, the chains. They were rusting steel structures, cumbersome and heavy and horribly cold. They had not appeared until after Battle City, after Malik had accepted the Pharaoh's innocence, burying his past and regaining control of his own mind. This lack of hatred had further hampered any thoughts Marik might have had of escape. Until his hikari died, the spirit would remain trapped in the dimmest corner of his mind, and then...

Marik hadn't thought of this before. _'What happens when my host dies?' _Would he be left behind or simply fade out of existance? _'Unless I already don't exist. Then what? Maybe I'd be born for real this time. In the world of Light, with a mother and father and people to care about.' _That would never happen. Not to someone like him, someone who deserved Nothing. It didn't matter if he was real or not. Marik would remain chained here for all eternity. Still, a faint hope insisted on twinkling in the back of his mind. _'Undesirable as I may be, I am still a part of Malik's Soul. When he goes to Heaven... maybe he'll take me with him.'_

Heaven...Darkness...Happiness...Nothing...Shadow...Abyss...Black... How many things could Marik ponder until his brain would explode? In an effort to get these strange words out of his head, the spirit directed his thoughts into the past. Like so many times before he saw himself strolling the halls of Battle Ship. He felt the real ground beneath his feet, shivered as real water trickled over his skin, dampening his hair and pooling in the hollows formed by his bent neck. Marik especially remembered the Shadows' joyful dancing as he fed them the souls of the Pharaoh's companions. They had been so pleased. Thinking back, he wondered if he'd done this to saciate them, throwing morsels to the Darkness to keep it from catching up with him.

The spirit laughed. His reign may have been short, but it had also been full of chaos. Wild, mad, insane battles, so wrathful they made the sky above them swirl with clouds of purple and grey and angry, soul-eating Black. The horrified looks in the eyes of his victims as the Shadows welcomed them with open arms. It had been trulymagnificant the havoc he had caused, and Marik loved to remember it.

But he had gone over these memories perhaps a thousand times, and the yami was tired of them. He didn't want to be good, didn't want to be kind and understanding as Atemu was, but then what was the point of seeking total destruction if you yourself were destroyed? Marik rested his head against his knees and moaned. He didn't know what he wanted anymore, didn't know who he was, where he could be, or what would happen when his Judgement came. The only fact that stuck clearly in the spirit's mind was that despite his efforts he had accomplished nothing. Ultimately he'd been returned to his place in the Darkness.

A sudden image flashed unbidden across Marik's gaze. It was of his first evening after taking over Malik's body. He had spent his time wandering through the maze of Kaiba's blimp, adjusting to having a physical body as he explored the labyrinth of corridors and stairways. It happened while he was walking down a particularly long hall. He had just passed an open door when a blaze of Light hit him full in the face. Marik stopped, irritated and slightly intrigued. Peaking through the doorway he saw a window swathed in sea blue drapes. The curtains masked all of the outside world, all but for several inches in the center where they hadn't been completely drawn. It was through this gap that the sunlight poured.

It was as if the sunset had been ripped wide open and a torrent of flaming gold released from it's tattered hem. The light raged in a single strip across the dimness of the room. Marik felt drawn to this strange anomaly, yet at the same time he was fearful. After being in the Dark for so long he was unused to such radiance. He lingered to the side, unsure of himself for the first time. Then with a disgusted snort he jerked forward and tore the curtain aside. Had anyone been close by they would have heard the spirit cry out in alarm, for in pushing back that bit of blue cloth Marik had exposed the Sun.

It burned there in all it's dying glory, a tribute to Ra's supremacy and brilliance. Even the Heavens bowed before it, for the sky was stained pink, gold, and fiery crimson with the life blood of the Sun. Marik watched in awe as the great orb slowly sank behind the waves. It was beautiful, like nothing he had ever seen before. True, the Sun represented all that he hated, but now it seemed so much more. A symbol of Life, for it rose every morning regardless of the world's sorrowful state, but it represented Death as well, for at the end of the day even the Sun was extinguished by Night. But what a fine end, to go out blazing and churning, boiling with flame and the intense, passionate need to survive. It moved the spirit to something beyond words.

But then even the Light in the sky began to dim, and the flaming ball was nothing more than a sliver peeping out from behind the waves. Slowly the image of it's glory faded, and Marik's heart once more gave in to Blackness. He berated himself for such foolishness. How dare he admire the Sun! It was like the rest of them, undeserving, begging to be destroyed. He would show them. He would put out the Sun and bring about a Darkness like none the world had ever known! Marik smiled ruthlessly, but his heart wasn't in it. Then the yami yanked the curtain back into place and walked away. He didn't look back. He didn't want to have to see the ribbon of gold erased, the room left in Shadow. After that he hadn't spent a single moment thinking about the Sun. It was too painful, like seeing that which he could never attain.

In the Nothing of his hikari's mind Marik stared at the little dots of liquid scattered at his feet.He wondered vaguely how they'd gotten there. He was afraid to touch them, afraid they would spatter into a million pieces if he even tried. Instead the spirit watched. Light seemed to reflect off of their smooth, glass-like surface, reminding him not of the Sun but something just as precious. As he gazed at the glistening little drops Marik's eyes began to burn, and more speckles appeared, tainting the Abyss with shivering spots of Purity. For that is what they were. Purity made supple to the touch. But still he did not want to reach out his hand. That would contaminate the Purity, fill it with Hatred and Pain and Regret until it was irreversibly soiled. And if he ever did one good deed in his whole Life this would be it.

So the monster watched over this Purity, never knowing from whence it came, until finally it was soaked up and disappeared...

...fading away to Black...

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-TOT 


End file.
